


Sight Lines

by Celandine



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Childhood, F/M, Ficlet, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-24 11:07:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9721454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celandine/pseuds/Celandine
Summary: Peeta watches Katniss in school.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Flora (florahart)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/florahart/gifts).



> For Florahart, who gave the prompt "Katniss and/or Peeta (with a / or an &), sight lines."

The roof, and therefore the ceiling, of the old schoolhouse sagged badly in several places. Timbers salvaged from a played-out mine had been set to prevent total collapse, and if that meant the scarred desks were placed erratically rather than in neat rows, well, it didn't much matter.

The children of the miners mostly sat to the back of the classroom, the more favored near the front. There were a few exceptions. Peeta's seat was second from the end of his row. He didn't like to be called on by the teacher if he could help it. Not because he didn't know the answers—usually he did—but because he didn't like the way everyone looked at him when he talked, even though he didn't stammer any more the way he once had.

Sitting where he did had its advantages. One of the timber props was just in front of his desk, a little to one side, and it meant that the teacher couldn't see him very easily. More important, it gave him a sight line to the girl two seats up and one over. He could tilt his head as if to see the blackboard better, and no one could tell he was looking at her.

Katniss. The first time he saw her, a scrawny kid with a tangle of dark hair and a missing tooth, she was standing up to one of the older girls who was trying to take the heel of bread smeared with lard that she'd brought in her lunch pail. She never started any fights, did Katniss, but she never lost any either. It took only a few before she was left strictly alone. The only girl who'd talk with her was Madge.

Peeta wished he could talk with Katniss himself, but being a boy, and one of the townies, he was doubly unable. Madge only got away with it because she was Mayor Undersee's daughter, and no one was going to criticize _her_. So all he could do was watch, and hope, and dream.


End file.
